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How Pavegen can Electrify Your Event

The future of meetings lies in the hands of event technologies like Pavegen, a temporary or permanent flooring system that generates electricity and captures data from footsteps. Henry Holme, live executive at Pavegen in charge of sales and events, discusses what the technology can do at meetings.

How did Pavegen come to fruition?

It was founded by Laurence Kemball-Cook in 2009. He spent the first couple of years developing the technology and figuring out how he could use electromagnetic conduction, which is the basis of the technology. We use [electromagnetic conduction] to convert kinetic energy generated from human footsteps into electricity.

How many installations has Pavegen executed?

We have done more than 150 installations around the globe, a number of which have been on a temporary basis to power brand experiences.

What’s involved with the temporary installations you do for events?

We lay our flooring system above [the venue’s flooring] and place ramps around it. As long as the venue has a flat, level floor, we can install with no problem. [The location] obviously needs to have high foot traffic, but it doesn’t have to be a walkway. We’ve done a number of activations at events and exhibitions that have been gamified solutions.

Can you explain the gamified solutions?

At Formula E, an electronic car’s version of Formula One, we created an interactive racing game. As users ran on the tiles, they powered a strip of LED lights around each tile. Simultaneously, they were racing a racecar on a digital racetrack on a screen.

How does Pavegen tie into the Internet of Things?

Something we’ve phrased is the “internet of beings,” where we bring in the human interactive element to [IoT]. We want to be that missing piece between humans and the built environment.

How will Pavegen provide intel for smart cities of the future?

We’re trying to shift away from the technology of being an energy solution. We’ll always provide a small amount of energy, but we’re looking at the data [generated by our foot-traffic technology] to make cities smarter and more connected.